My Life As a Gam3r

Videogames have been a part of my life since I was very young. My earliest memories are of me watching my Dad play the Nintendo Entertainment System. There were times when videogames were my only friend, and provided a safe haven for me when I was scared and alone. Videogames have also allowed me to impress other kids with my l33t skills, which helped me make friends easier. Now that I am in college, videogames give me a way to kick back and relax when I need a break from the stress of school. I am older now, and don’t “game” as often as I used to, but videogames will always have a special place in my life.

I didn’t have a very close relationship with either of my parents, but videogames were one way I was able to connect. My introduction to videogames was through my Dad. My Dad enjoyed playing the NES, and I’d often sit with him and watch him play Super Mario Brothers. As I grew older, he let me play as well. I must not have been very good at it, but he was usually willing to let me sit there with him and try. My Dad was also a big hockey fan, and one of his favorite games was Blades of Steel. At the time, graphics in that game were superb; but when I play it now, it looks like rectangles throwing a square around. The game also featured one of the very first examples of voice recording in a videogame. I always got a kick out of hearing the refs yell “FACEOFF!” The fact that you could fight every two seconds was also very exciting to me (I was six years old).

One of my fondest birthday memories was my seventh birthday, the day I received my Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The SNES came with Super Mario World, which instantly became my new favorite game. At first I was having difficulties, because the controls were a bit more complex than those of the NES. When I started playing Super Mario World, the only jumping move I would use was the one that made the character spin in the air, which would break various blocks, but was a much shorter jump than the normal one. I was stuck in the game for awhile because of this, but once I learned how to jump normally, things were much easier. My Dad didn’t want to play the SNES with me until my parents bought me Super Mario Kart. My Dad and I would play for hours on end, dodging bananas and throwing shells at each other. This helped our relationship a lot, because I wasn’t very good at physical games or sports that my Dad tried to play with me. Mario Kart was the one thing that we could enjoy together. I remember many long nights, staying up with him, playing Super Mario Kart.

A few years later, a new video game system came into my life: the Nintendo 64. I received it one year for Christmas. That was the best Christmas ever. Not only did I get the N64, but I also got a bunch of games for it, including one of my all time favorites, Golden Eye. For some reason that Christmas, we celebrated it at my Grandmother’s house, and we also ended up spending the night there, so I was tragically unable to play my brand spankin’ new console. I slept with it that night, but I was so excited I probably didn’t get very much sleep. Once I got home, I played it for the rest of that Christmas vacation. Unfortunately, the N64 was too intense for my Dad, and he didn’t like playing Mario Kart 64, so I played games with my sister instead. My Dad bought me sports games, but I didn’t really care for those and stuck to games like Donkey Kong 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (the good games).

When I was ten years old, my parents got divorced. My Mom forced my sister and I to lie to the judge and say things that helped her get full custody of us. We had to move out of the house I grew up in to a tiny house outside of Flint. It was only a two bedroom house, and my Mom and sister used both bedrooms, so I was forced to stay in a cramped “bedroom” whose ceiling was so low I couldn’t stand up without having to hunch over. This room became my sanctuary, where I spent many years hiding from my Mom, playing videogames. Some summers, I would only come out to drink or use the bathroom. My Mom was not a pleasant person to live with, and my videogames gave me an excuse and way to hide from her. One good memory during this time was when I met my best friend, Bryce. He lived down the road from me, and his house was close enough that I could ride my bike to it in the summer while my Mom was at work. It was there that I was introduced to a new videogame system, the Nintendo GameCube. Super Smash Bros. Melee was our favorite game to play together, and I got very good at it. So good that other kids in class became my friends only because I was good at that game. I was a shy kid, so anything that helped me make friends was great.

Over the next few years, I owned (pwned) many different video game systems such as the Xbox, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo Wii, and the Nintendo DS. The most important “videogame system” was when I hand-built my very first computer, the summer before my senior year of high school. It took me several years to convince my Mom that computers were something that people used for school work and needed on a daily basis, so this marked my entry into the 21st century. My friend helped me choose the different components to the computer, and I assembled it myself. I was very proud of my computer, and it opened up a whole new world of gaming to me.

I almost exclusively play PC games now. One summer, I became quite “addicted” to World of Warcraft and spent a few weeks straight in the basement trying to get my new character to level 70 so that I could raid with Bryce. I was also able to go to LAN parties held at a friend’s house, and could play online with people that I knew. I slowly started accumulating a decent collection of PC games.

I don’t have much time to play video games anymore, but being able to quickly open a game on my computer between homework assignments (like this one), helps me to relax and not feel overwhelmed. Right now, the games I play are: Left 4 Dead, Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour, Counter Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2, the Half-Life Series, Portal, Age of Empires, Command and Conquer 3, and Call of Duty 4. My favorite type of game is FPSs (First Person Shooters), but I’m getting better at RTS (Real Time Strategy) games.

Even though I don’t have a lot of time to play videogames anymore, a quick half-hour game at the end of the day helps me to get my mind off of whatever happened earlier, and just relax. When I was younger, I had to use videogames to try to escape the realities of my messed up life, living with my Mom. Now, I can use videogames as a way to escape, de-stress, and let go of the things that sometimes go wrong in my life. They are a temporary escape for me now, not an attempt at a permanent escape.